Merrill Goozner used to favor head to head comparisons of drugs as a precondition for reimbursement. Now he see's them as a tool that drug companies can use to fool and befuddle government and insurance companies.
"A drug company brings a new drug to market based on government-funded research. It charges a huge price for the drug, but since its the insurance companies money, it's everyone's money, which means it's no one's money. So no one complains -- for a while. What does Teva do with the huge cash flow that comes from selling this very expensive drug to a small population of MS sufferers? It funds clinical trials to show it's drug is superior to other in the field, which it shows, sort of. But the trials are never really good enough to prove superiority, just good enough to establish market dominance, which was probably the real goal of the trials. So the government has to sort things out, but it gets back into the game very late and very slowly. The insurance industry, fed up with paying extraordinarily high prices, starts putting the financial onus on patients."
www.gooznews.com/archives/cat_drugs.html
Goozner is referring to the Tier 4 payment category which by itself is crazy. But all of a sudden comparative clinical trials are no good. Maybe they should be bigger and government run. Then there would be no drugs except the one drug selected by government to hit the market. But wouldn't that create a monopoly price? No problem. In the Gooz's world. The price would be slashed by licensing out product to generic companies who would sell the rights to produce the breakthrough at pennies per dose.
Because innovation all flows from government anyways and all the R and D and the marketing and education carried out by private companies is sort of just greedy rent-seeking behavior of the basest sort... I would have no problem have a respectful debate on the best way to advance medical progress but Goozner and others want to shut off debate by attacking motives and funding sources. As I have noted, it cuts both ways but the media and the blogging world are intensely hypocritical on that score.
One other Goozworthy note...He claims I don't support embyronic stem cell research. He infers that because he asserts I am a conservative and CMPI is conservative and therefore assumes I hold down the line social conservative positions. In otherwords, Goozner who never bothered to check or ask me. For the record, I support ESC research though I have tremendous respect for the positions of those that do not and I don't write about it because it is not an area that is CMPI's central focus.
"A drug company brings a new drug to market based on government-funded research. It charges a huge price for the drug, but since its the insurance companies money, it's everyone's money, which means it's no one's money. So no one complains -- for a while. What does Teva do with the huge cash flow that comes from selling this very expensive drug to a small population of MS sufferers? It funds clinical trials to show it's drug is superior to other in the field, which it shows, sort of. But the trials are never really good enough to prove superiority, just good enough to establish market dominance, which was probably the real goal of the trials. So the government has to sort things out, but it gets back into the game very late and very slowly. The insurance industry, fed up with paying extraordinarily high prices, starts putting the financial onus on patients."
www.gooznews.com/archives/cat_drugs.html
Goozner is referring to the Tier 4 payment category which by itself is crazy. But all of a sudden comparative clinical trials are no good. Maybe they should be bigger and government run. Then there would be no drugs except the one drug selected by government to hit the market. But wouldn't that create a monopoly price? No problem. In the Gooz's world. The price would be slashed by licensing out product to generic companies who would sell the rights to produce the breakthrough at pennies per dose.
Because innovation all flows from government anyways and all the R and D and the marketing and education carried out by private companies is sort of just greedy rent-seeking behavior of the basest sort... I would have no problem have a respectful debate on the best way to advance medical progress but Goozner and others want to shut off debate by attacking motives and funding sources. As I have noted, it cuts both ways but the media and the blogging world are intensely hypocritical on that score.
One other Goozworthy note...He claims I don't support embyronic stem cell research. He infers that because he asserts I am a conservative and CMPI is conservative and therefore assumes I hold down the line social conservative positions. In otherwords, Goozner who never bothered to check or ask me. For the record, I support ESC research though I have tremendous respect for the positions of those that do not and I don't write about it because it is not an area that is CMPI's central focus.
